Velasquez (11-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC) wasn’t the champion back then. He was just another fighter on the fringes of the heavyweight top 10.

Maybe that’s why Cormier, the former captain of the U.S. Olympic wrestling team who was just transitioning into an MMA career, figured he wouldn’t be so tough.

“I remember thinking, ‘Holy cow, have I ever got some serious work to do,'” Cormier told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) of that first sparring session at American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose. “At the time, Cain was just kind of on his way up into the top 10 of the division. He hadn’t established himself as the man yet. I thought, ‘If there are 10 guys better than him in MMA, this will be the hardest sport I’ve ever done in my life.'”

If you had asked Velasquez about his career goals back then, the answer probably would have been simple. Like most ambitious young fighters, he wanted to be a UFC champion. But now that he has won the belt, lost it and won it back again, it’s no longer quite so easy.

As Velasquez heads into his second rematch in as many outings at UFC 160 on Saturday, the question seems unavoidable: What — or, more precisely, whom — does the UFC heavyweight champion really want?

The assumption embedded in that question is that there’s not much to gain in a fight against Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva (18-4, 2-1 UFC), whom Velasquez faces for the second time in a 12-month span. Their bout headlines Saturday’s event in Las Vegas (10 p.m. ET, pay-per-view).

The last time they met, in May 2012, Velasquez steamrolled the Brazilian en route to a bloody first-round finish. But Silva has rebounded with two consecutive UFC victories — first against Travis Browne, who injured his hamstring early, and then against former Strikeforce champ Alistair Overeem, who seemed to be cruising to a victory before tiring in the final round and suffering a surprising knockout loss at the hands of Silva.

Those dueling upsets earned him a shot at Velasquez, but it has yet to earn Silva much respect. Velasquez comes in as a heavy favorite according to oddsmakers, though don’t tell him that Silva didn’t earn the right to be here.

“I think (Silva) has proven himself with the last two fights he’s had,” Velasquez says. “There’s no lucky breaks. We saw what he did to those guys. He deserves the shot.”

That’s fine for Silva, but what does it do for Velasquez? If he beats the big Brazilian again, it’s no big deal. That’s what people are expecting. The fact that he did it with such apparent ease the first time they fought might make a lot of fighters complacent about preparing for the rematch. That’s not the case with Velasquez, according to his head trainer, Javier Mendez.

“It could be an advantage or a disadvantage if you don’t take him seriously,” Mendez says of Velasquez’s previous win against Silva. “I know Cain is taking him very seriously. His thing is, whoever they give him, whoever’s the challenger, that’s his job. He’ll go take care of that guy.”

And that, according to his coaches and training partners, is the extent of Velasquez’s ambitions as champion. His first reign was cut short by one big blow from Brazilian striker Junior dos Santos. Velasquez took the belt back in the rematch in December, leading many to anticipate a trilogy fight between the two.

“I think we’ll fight again,” Velasquez says of dos Santos. “I have to win my fight and he has to win his fight, but it can happen.”

Cormier, who has become Velasquez’s main sparring partner, says the champ has trained as hard for underdog Silva as he did for his shot at redemption vs. dos Santos. That might be partly because of the lesson he learned the first time he had possession of what has proved to be the most difficult UFC title to retain. There’s no such thing as an easy title defense in the division; no UFC fighter has successfully defended the belt more than two consecutive times.

“Cain loves being the champion,” Cormier says. “He works hard because he understands the prestige and the importance of being the UFC champion. At the end of the day, that’s what means most.

“He’s a guy who’s all about providing for his family, and that’s what being the champion allows him to do and do it comfortably.”

In a division full of so many big, bad men waiting for a crack at his belt, true comfort might be fleeting.

Then again, if history is any indicator, so is ownership of the UFC heavyweight title.

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